The fact is that the word progressive is always relative to the times and the spiritual and conceptual wisdom of those times. The Democrats before 1908 ran on planks that were populist, free market, anti-corporation, and largely rural, in fact corrupt, and in the South deeply racist. The first progressives in cities were mostly Republicans, largely because the Democratic machines in the cities were incredibly corrupt. Eventually these attributes switched somewhat.
In 1912 Woodrow Wilson tacked "left" and embraced some elements of the progressive cause of the time. Progressive in those days meant economic fairness, judicial reform, and massive industrial policy. It didn't mean desegregation, fairness to minorities or blacks, and in fact Woodrow Wilson was overtly racist. Scientific racism was a credo of the atheist, and religious racism of everybody else. He watched the movie "Birth of A Nation" and applauded, and he instituted Jim Crow for the first time in the Federal Government, where, for all their corporatist and elitist faults, the Republicans had kept true to Lincoln's promises up until then.
While this racism was a severe fault of Wilson's, it also was a severe prejudice, delusion and key source of degredation in the events of the times. Wilson wasn't alone, the system was at fault almost as much as he was. His character flaw was key on this because he had the power to start change and didn't. Franklin Roosevelt, to his credit, at least was aware of the flaws of racism and tribalism and willing to break with previous concept and start changes -- though he didn't end segregation. It took Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson to do that.
At the same time other Democrats embraced all of progressivism enthusiastically and resisted him half heartedly. The Democrats have always been a party that harmonized people with different concepts. At that time Suffragette women were afraid to side with blacks because they'd loose followers, and blacks were afraid to side with women for the same reasons.
These attitudes didn't really strengthen them as much as they thought. On the contrary allowing prejudice and self interest tends to corrupt concepts. And failure to be willing to unite over common purpose and to see common purpose just meant that those whose motives were insincere, selfish, and even perverse could take advantage of them. Just as now.
Some people broke those rules because they perceived they were false. They were willing to take on the suffering that comes from going against societies norms because those norms were erroneous and counterfeit. When people first break rules based on observation of reality it is very dangerous for them. They are like the Child in the Emperor's New Clothes yarn. The Emperor is naked, but for anyone to notice is death.
Samuel Clemens argued against annexing the Philippines after the Spanish American War (and against war in general). He was too famous or he might have been jailed. A socialist, Eugene Debs, ran against Wilson. Wilson later locked him up and had him charged under the Espianage act (which is still on the books). In the USA people have been jailed, lynched, or run out of the country for telling the truth. These people paid a price for their opposition to norms, it was as much because they raised unpleasant questions and spoke the truth that they were attacked. Wilson was wrong, but so was Roosevelt. The great majority of the people were wrong, but it was hazardous to even notice it.
The result of the lack of clarify of purpose and consistency of principle was felt across the board. Wilson embraced universal rights, but then compromised when "brown people" were involved. Wilson's racism provided him a lens that made him oblivious to the rights of common folks in places like the Middle East, Latin America, and Mexico. He practiced a kind of "missionary diplomacy" that consistantly offended potential allies, picked favorites on faulty premises, and let the European Powers move into areas of the world (specifically the Middle East) where they were incompetant to execute any of his principles of human freedom and equality -- all on the basis of the faulty notion that those principles only applied to white people.
The point is not to trash modern or older progressives, but to point out that conceptions change, and even evolve. Conserving faulty strategies often ends up undermining the very concepts they were originally supposed to promote. Modern progressives are still about, and maybe even more than former ones, progress. They are also about the Constitution, preserving its integrity, and human rights, but we also embody a shift in perception of how the bill of rights and the constitution applies to people. We no longer think that people are faulty or inferior and are held down by some sort of genetic original sin, but recognize that environment, genetics and nurture interpolate. We recognize the brilliance of the absolute statement, and the appropriateness of the concept that "All [sentient beings] men are created equal" all the better for this. Even so, like the progressives of old personal prejudice and self interest get in the way more often than they help. Concepts evolve as people challenge the old. Those who maintain that every document means exactly what it means ignore the fact that what it means to them is a matter of their own perspective -- no matter how obvious the meaning may be. An old Robin Hood story talking about his merry band being happy and Gay has a very different connotation from what a more recent reference to Gay would be saying. One reason "privacy" is not in the Constitution is that the word once had the connotation of "using the facilities." They used the expression "secure in one's persons and effects" instead.
Integrity is the integral of human behavior and the degree to which it stays within defined lines of principle. Principles have fractal dimensions. That is some rights seque or derive from other principles, others define, refine, or limit each other. Property is a right that derives from the principle of freedom and liberty. To be free one has to be able to move within a space. To be free one has to be able to own that space. Property rights are an expression of a legitimate need and are universal and are inalienable rights -- but not absolute ones. This is because the property rights of some people can become oppressive to others. An absolute right over property can mean that someone can't get from point a to point b. Being able to own "common necessities" (the commons) enables people to deny life and liberty to others. For property rights to have integrity they can't infringe on freedom more than is necessary to protect the freedom of one against the other. Thus Property limits liberty, and liberty limits property, and the principle of equality derives from the need for property and liberty to be distributed.
Just as Civil Rights activists of yore were divided by an unwillingness to clarify principle, so our modern activists are divided on the core issues that corrupt us by personal interest, the desire to get along with others, and the goal of "moving on" or "getting things done." So how does one combat this?
The answer in part is found in three examples. That of Bodhisattva Never Despise, that of Socrates, that of Nichiren and that of Gandhi. Gandhi practiced Satyagraha, which loosely translates as "seeking truth" or "truth power."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Satyagraha
Bodhisattva Never Despise went to meet with all religious leaders and treated each of them with respect. Socrates practiced relentless questioning seeking truth, and invented the concepts that led to modern Philosophy (love of wisdom). Both were reacted to with hate and disrespect. Never Despise nevertheless brought Buddhism back to his world. Socrates was killed but his disciple Plato revolutionized the Graeco-Roman way of thinking and paved the way for modernity.
Plato paved the way for other philosophers who eventually led to Spinoza and modern philosophy being reinvented.
Locke, Paine and others paved the way for Emerson and Thoreau.
Emerson and Thoreau paved the way for Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
All great philosophers and reformers have practiced along the same evolving standard. Nichiren summarized the power of truth in a short Gosho:
"Though numerous, the Japanese will find it difficult to accomplish anything, because they are divided in spirit. In contrast, although Nichiren and his followers are few, because they are different in body, but united in mind, they will definitely accomplish their great mission of widely propagating the Lotus Sutra. Though evils may be numerous, they cannot prevail over a single great truth, just as many raging fires are quenched by a single shower of rain. This principle also holds true with Nichiren and his followers."
The power of Satyagraha comes from its ability to build itai doshin among those who embrace it, while demolishing or even converting opponents based on the simple reality that lies degrade ones ability to function in actuality. One can't defeat enemies with lies. That only creates two sets of dysfunctional opponents and represents an illusion about where the enemy really is.
When Wilson failed to see that the notions of human rights inherited from Jefferson applied to all people he failed to see that his enemy wasn't black people, but slavery, ignorance, and tribalism. His delusion that "Birth of a Nation" was a great film with a truthful message was based on prejudice.
It took Martin Luther King, operating on the power of truth force / Satyagraha, to break the notions of inferiority, groundless hate, and fear that underlaid Jim Crow. Followers of Wilson's lead weren't killed in battle, they were defeated by truth. How can a man as kind, gentle, intelligent and wise as Martin Luther King be discriminated against simply because of his skin color? The question was posed by his demonstrations and marches. And the answer was illustrated by his behavior. Martin Luther King gave his life to establish a principle. But it was worth it and we are all better for it.
And Martin Luther King died, apparently, largely because he challenged Johnson on Vietnam. He'd already won his point on civil rights partly. But the greater point on human rights contradicted the aims and money making schemes of monied interests, and challenged Johnson's hubristic notions of "winning" the occupation and war in South Vietnam. He was threatened by no less than Hoover. He was followed by both the CIA and the FBI, who conveniently disappeared at the moment a hired assassin was to train his gun at him. He was no threat to the United States, but he was a threat to the monied interests, the privateers, and profiteers, who ran Washington from behind the scenes. Why? Because he spoke the truth.
When Gandhi fought against the assertion of the British that an entire Country, India, was the property of the British Crown run for the use of the people of the royalty and well connected of England he was arguing against the royalist property rights for the rights of the people of India. He would have won his point even if the British had locked him up and tortured him, but because the British had some shred of decency they eventually gave in to him and he won. Nevertheless he was killed because his own people couldn't agree on keeping together and respecting differences once the rebellion was to be over. The enemy is ill got advantage, the use of lies to get and keep advantage, and the propensity to lie, not individuals. The British weren't the enemy. Had India been better run and more united from the beginning, the East India Company would have had no more success there than it had in the US colonies (our Revolutionary war was sparked by them).
This is truth force. It allows people to figure out ways to adjudicate disputes without one exterminating, overpowering and oppressing, or degrading the other.
And obviously, we need to apply the power of satyagraha/truth force, to those who think they are in power in our day. They need to be reminded that power in a democracy derives from the people.
I firmly believe that Ends equal means:
"Referring to the relationship between satyagraha and Purna Swaraj, Gandhi saw "an inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree." He wrote, "If the means employed are impure, the change will not be in the direction of progress but very likely in the opposite. Only a change brought about in our political condition by pure means can lead to real progress."
Further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Satyagraha
On the other hand, endorsing torture, spying, expropriation, and other vile acts in the name of "realpolitik" may be tactically expedient, but it is always strategically inferior in results.
Chris
Posted by cholte at May 30, 2009 11:25 AM